


do to your neighbor

by Code16



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Self-Sacrifice, Tumblr Prompt, dark!Fëanor, implied/referenced corporal punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22627759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: dark!dom!Feanor runs a stern household for anyone in it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	do to your neighbor

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted on tumblr [from a word-or-phrase-from-a-list prompt](https://creativichee.tumblr.com/post/120992338495/send-me-a-number-and-ill-write-a-micro-story). 
> 
> **13\. too loud**
> 
> Premise: sub!Turgon is having to stay with dark!dom!Feanor and his family (for, um, some reason).
> 
> Originally [posted on tumblr](https://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com/post/190713268179/13-for-the-microstory-thing).

He takes a step and the stair creaks. Turgon freezes. Stops trying to progress up the stairs. Doesn’t exhale, for a moment (- that doesn’t make sense. They can’t hear him breathing, if he isn’t doing it loudly, not if no one is in the hallway, if everyone is in their rooms -).

Can they hear the stairs? He isn’t sure how loud it was. Not loud enough to tell from any other sound of the house at night? Too loud? Loud enough to hear? (Loud enough for his uncle to hear - it would probably be alright if his cousins heard. They’ve been kind, telling him the rules, finding chores he can contribute to, asking if there’s anything someone can do. Telling him what would make his uncle angry. (Submissives in his household being out of bed in the night - that’s something that makes his uncle angry.))

His uncle’s door is near the end of the hall. His eldest cousins are right by the stairs. He can’t hear any doors opening, no one says anything. No one has heard. Probably no one has heard. (His heart pounds.)

(Somehow he hadn’t thought of any of this, shivering on his way down the stairs a few hours ago, knowing most of what he could want wasn’t in this house but still wanting, needing to be anywhere but the bedroom. The living room, empty in the dark, had seemed almost welcoming. He’d drifted off on the couch, hugging a book he couldn’t see the cover of. He - must have been lucky. Not to be heard, not to be seen. Had woken up, remembering where he was. Knowing he couldn’t be there, once morning started, once anyone woke.)

It’s quiet. No light goes on in the crack under a door. No other footsteps sound. He exhales, again. He takes another step.

It’s on the third step after that he falls. Doesn’t know how - can’t remember anything on the stairs that would trip him. But his foot slips or catches, and he throws out one arm in front of him - clutches the book to himself with the other; if it falls he’ll have to go back _down_ \- his knees hit a step and slip another one down. He manages to swallow any sound at the pain of every part of his body that strikes the stairs or the wall. Almost covers his hand over his mouth. Freezes, as soon as he can, tries to keep making no other sound. Lies against the stairs in the dark and doesn’t want to breathe again.

A light goes on under the door near the end of the hallway. Footsteps - not hesitant. He presses against the stairs, against the wall, and knows it can’t possibly help, as soon as his uncle looks, as soon as there’s light enough to look -

The door at the top of the stairs opens just before the other. In the dim light of some night-lamp in the room behind him, he can see his eldest cousin, in his nightshirt and barefoot, hair disarrayed for sleep. Looking down the hall, not at all back to the stairs.

“Sir?”

He can barely see his uncle down the hall - the light must have been a bedside lamp, not the main light, doesn’t reach most of the way through the hall. (He tries to be stiller, tries to be silent completely - as though it will matter, as though they won’t see him as soon as they look-)

“Nelyafinwe.” He almost flinches at his uncle’s voice, but stillquiet stillquiet, the stairs creaked before-. “What was that racket?”

“I um. I fell out of my chair sir.”

He can’t see his uncle’s face, but he can imagine his expression, from when he’s seen him before, from hearing and seeing other doms (doms his father’s always tried to keep him interposed from….) “Which you were in, at this time of night, for what reason?”

His cousin looks at the floor. “I’m sorry, sir.” (For a moment, ridiculous in retrospect, Turgon thinks of the coincidence, that Maitimo fell at the same time he did. Was there some seismic tremor, or something that could startle both of them without him noticing it… Before he realizes, what it is Maitimo is doing. Almost jumps up, then - he can’t let -. But - lying, he remembers, that’s something that makes his uncle angry. If he jumps up, draws the attention to himself (like it deserves to be, he’s the one who-), his uncle will know Maitimo lied. (Deserves to be, and he’s _scared_ , his uncle would know he’s been out of bed, out of his room, his uncle would -. Guilty, because why is he thinking about that right now, he’s the one who-.)

The door to his uncle’s office is closer to the stairs. He can see his uncle’s dark outline as he goes toward it, opens the door. Maitimo follows. There’s something strange about the way he follows(?) Turgon thinks for a second, before he recognizes Maitimo is trying to stay between his own father and the stairs. He tries to shrink harder into the wall - his uncle is going to turn the lights on, but the door will be in the way then, and he doesn’t have a reason to turn back…

The light goes on. He flinches at it, but his uncle must really not turn around. The door closes. Turgon waits, counts in his head - is he waiting long enough, is he waiting too long (Maitimo is in there taking what should be his punishment, and he is grateful and guilty and can’t do anything that won’t make it worse for them both, and guilty again because he isn’t sure he would if he could. And he can’t, can’t, just make it worse on them both _anyway_.)

Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. More seconds. He pushes himself to his feet. Clutches the book (his arm is starting to ache around it from holding it as hard as he is). Tries to be quiet, tries to be fast, tries to be both, up the rest of the stairs and down the hall and opening the door to his middle cousins’ room and closing it behind him and not stopping, Maitimo had said he’d fallen _in his room_ and his uncle had -. Back into the unfolded bed - he takes the book with him, can’t risk dropping it, can’t risk a light. Pulls the blanket over himself and the book. And - breathes, like he had held his breath the entire time, heart racing still as though he’d run up the stairs many more times than once.

(He doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Maitimo tomorrow. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do tomorrow in the night, if the same feeling takes over him again.) His heart slows down. The room is dark as the stairs had been, silent. He lies in bed and waits for whether he can hear footsteps coming back from the office to the hall.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr for these kinds of things](http://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com). I love fandom social things, and anyone who feels like they might want to message etc me for any reason is encouraged to totally do so.


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